Something very interesting is happening within the tech world: the biggest tech giants in Silicon Valley are racing to make your home a vast new playground for all of their new tech devices and platforms. But whatever you do – don't call it the "smart home." According to Google executives, the term "smart home" has fallen out of favor at the company, presumably because it conjures up all kinds of images of surveillance cameras and smart home devices that are constantly monitoring, tracking and listening to you. A better term, according to top Google executives, is the "helpful home." A "helpful home" respects consumer privacy and comes with all sorts of features and benefits to make your life easier.

At its Made By Google event yesterday, the search giant announced a number of new products and services to build on its "Helpful Home" smart home concept. AI-powered systems like Google Assistant are at the heart of this strategy, tying together a range of tools and services from first- and third-party brands to create new means of controlling the home and to allow Google to automate and anticipate the wants and needs of consumers at home. Here's what Google announced for the smart home: Despite the event being nominally about its hardware, the overriding takeaway from these announcements is that Google's underlying AI is far more central to its home strategy, especially relative to Amazon. Google's portfolio of first-party hardware for smart speakers and the smart home pales in comparison to Amazon, its chief rival in the space in the US and Europe. That's because Google seems intent to use its hardware to be smarter about getting inputs and information from users, rather than surrounding the user with a flood of devices. Google's approach emphasizes to the consumer that the AI is doing more of the heavy lifting and "inhabiting" the home in unseen ways.

The article below was sent to Business Insider Intelligence Connectivity and Tech subscribers yesterday.